"Isn't that a peach of a handle for a kitchen queen with a map like the Borough of The Bronx on a dark night?
"She came here well recommended—by herself. She said she knew how to cook backwards.
"We believed her after the first meal, because that's how she cooked it.
"Phyllis was a very inventive girl. She could cook anything on earth or in the waters underneath the earth, and she proved it by trying to mix tenpenny nails with the baked beans.
"When Phyllis found there was no shredded oats in the house for breakfast she changed the cover of the wash tub into sawdust and sprinkled it with the whisk-broom, chopped fine.
"It wasn't a half bad breakfast food of the home-made kind, but every time I took a drink of water the sawdust used to float up in my throat and tickle me.
"The first and only day she was with us Phyllis squandered two dollars worth of eggs trying to make a lemon meringue pie.
"She tried to be artistic with this, but one of the eggs was old and nervous and it slipped.
"Uncle Peter asked Phyllis if she could cook some Hungarian goulash and Phyllis screamed, 'No; my parents have been Swedes all their lives!' Then she ran him across the lawn with the carving knife.
"Aunt Martha went in the kitchen to ask what was for dinner and Phyllis got back at her, 'Im a woman, it is true, but I will show you that I can keep a secret!'